Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad Card Game Coming to Mobile Near You

There are so many things to love about the Final Fantasy franchise, especially the mini-games and other side-quests that are prolific among the series. Now the Triple Triad card game featured in Final Fantasy VIII is going to have a real life analogue. Only in Japan for now, of course.

Square Enix is making Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad card game available in the Final Fantasy Portal app on mobile platforms in Japan.

I’ve always loved the depth of the Final Fantasy franchise, with a tremendous amount of side-quests and other fun things to do in game. Those little details added a lot of fun to an already awesome series of games. I even remember racing Chocobo’s for the first time in Final Fantasy VII even, it was quite a bit of fun!

Now one of their card games is playable outside of Final Fantasy VIII, letting you enjoy the fun little side-game in real life now. The catch, of course there’s a catch with Square Enix, is that it’s only available in Japan for now, though that might change. It seems that Japanese only releases may merely be delayed rest of the world releases since Nintendo has revealed that the reception for otherwise Japan-centric games has been rather positive in North America.

Maybe this is a sign of things to come, perhaps other franchises will follow suit and release their mini-games as standalone pieces as well. I know that there are some card games within a particular universe that’s actually more fun, to me, than real word card games. I’ll call it “23”.